March 2004     

Of Wolves and Democracy

Does the average citizen have any voice left in how this country addresses its most conflict-ridden issues like wolves, grizzly bears, the ESA, mad cow, COOL, and all rest? Citizens need to step back and take a good look at what Wyoming has done with its wolf management plan. It doesn't matter how you call it, Wyoming is practicing democracy, and the big players don't like it very much. Maybe it's time citizens started focusing their attention on how democracy is supposed to function in this country.

Consider this.

Currently, when issues are presented to us, we are directed to "comment" on the proposed law. If Congress is handling the proposed law and the decision-makers are politicians, and those who comment represent a large enough voting block, then chances are, comments will have an effect. Why? Because politicians are accountable to the public. If they don't do what the public wants, they risk their job next term.

What if politicians don't want to be held accountable for laws that the government thrusts upon the public? Most likely, the administrative bodies will end up being the decision-makers. Administrative bodies include all the agencies like the USDA, USFS, EPA, etc. The law states that the agencies must "consider" comments, but if they want to throw them into the wastebasket, they are free to do so. They can do this because these individuals are not elected officials, and they are not accountable to the public. They have no job to lose. Consequently, a great deal of conflict is brewing over agency actions, especially over trade and conservation issues.

What have they done to address this problem? A good example is to look at how federal and state agencies have chosen to address the conflict. They created vehicles to involve the public in the planning and management of government land, and other public policy items to resolve conflict issues. The most common vehicles include the BLM's Resource Advisory Councils (RAC), while most of the other agencies, including the USFS, USFWS, and State Fish and Game Departments generally use what is called a Working Group. The wolf management plans for the various states were created through these vehicles. The comment process, coupled with these vehicles for public involvement, represent a whole new concept in democracy, and not a very good one at that.

"It has been the experience of most citizens that enormous barriers have been erected to prevent them from having meaningful input into the policy conflicts that they have been most affected by."

There is a man by the name of Robert A. Dahl, of Yale University who has written numerous books on the subject of democracy. In his book, Democracy And Its Critics, he said that there were four criteria that had to be met in order for the democratic process to function. It is the failure to meet these criteria that leads democratic societies into conflict.

The first two criteria are "effective participation," and "voting equity." What this means is that citizens have to have an adequate and equal opportunity to express their choices about decisions that affect them. The third criteria is "enlightened understanding," or "access to information." What this means is if citizens were to have any say in the final outcome of decisions, they would have to have adequate, equal, and timely access to information and knowledge of what issues were being decided. The fourth criteria is "control of the agenda." In a democratic society, citizens have to have final control over matters placed on the agenda, and not experience barriers to this process. This involves both how and what policy conflicts are placed on the agenda. Dahl pointed out that this is the most critical criterion in a democracy, because if an anti-democratic movement were to seize power, they do this by controlling the agenda.

"They exercise power by controlling and preventing issues from becoming a focus of decision-making. Under this scenario, the people may use their old democratic political institutions, but only for minor or local matters, i.e., traffic control, residential zoning, etc."

The question is whether the non-elected decision-makers are adhering to the democratic process. Let's look at the first two criteria: "effective participation," and "voting equity." "RAC's" have broad-spectrum representation, however, the guidelines are so broad that some community interests could be excluded. Members who serve have to provide references from represented interests. Terms of service are staggered and limited. "Working groups," on the other hand, do not have to be representational of community interests. In essence, there is no set criteria for membership or requirement that members have references from the interests they claim to represent. Working groups can be created around species, mountain ranges, waterways, projects, or anything else. There is no limit to the number of working groups that can be active in any given area. There is no time limit to a working group's existence. Once formed, they can be used to address anything the agency directs them to address.

Because there is no limit to the number of groups or issues being addressed in a given area, citizens experience what I call "participation paralyzation." How much time can a citizen commit to this process? At what point does this commitment, which represents their only opportunity to participate, become unreasonable? When the options become unreasonable, then the citizen's participation is neither adequate, effective, or equal.

Citizens can apply to fill these positions for any of the agencies, but it is either the agency personnel or existing group members who decide who will fill these positions. The public has no say. It is not uncommon to find that these positions are filled by people who either support the agency's agenda, or people who would not be inclined to challenge them. In fact, the various agencies have been quite consistent about excluding primary stakeholders in this process. Primary stakeholders are defined as those individuals who experience the brunt of the economic impact as a consequence of the decisions that are made by these groups. Instead, what you find on these groups are "token" stakeholders. These are individuals who may be associated with stakeholder industries, but who are not in a position to experience direct economic impacts. Since members are not elected by citizens, they are not representative of the communities they claim to represent, and they are not accountable to them.

If the government wants to honor our democracy and involve the public in decisions that affect them, then they should at least do it right.

Let's look at the third criteria: "enlightened understanding," or "access to information." Currently, it is common practice to instruct participants in these groups to not discuss the activities of the group with non-members, or to the media. They have even been instructed not to tell people that they have received this particular instruction. This obviously raises questions of legality when it is supposed to be a public process.

While citizens outside the groups are allowed to attend these meetings, most don't, for a number of reasons: meetings may be held during working hours and often are; citizens have no real power to affect decisions; decisions are not being made on issues that they want to be addressed, etc.

If a citizen cannot attend the meetings he can request the minutes. The most widespread problem with this is that there is ample evidence to suggest that the information provided in the minutes is highly censured; information is often excluded, incomplete and non-descript. It is not always clear what the agency is trying to achieve or how their decisions will affect members of a community. There is no requirement that this information be delivered to citizens in a timely manner, and many citizens find that by the time they are made aware of the activities of these groups, decisions have already been made circumventing their ability to participate.

Now, the fourth criteria: "control of the agenda." There is ample evidence that agencies are only allowing citizens to participate in decisions that the agencies choose. Citizens have been trying to get their policy conflicts on the agenda for years. These policy conflicts include items like road obliteration, allotment cuts, timber harvests, mining permits, fire control, recreational access, whether we want wolves or not, in our back yards, when and how we have our food labeled, etc. In fact, the agenda items that these groups are working on tend to add to the list of policy conflicts, provoking even more conflict rather than resolving it. It has been the experience of most citizens that enormous barriers have been erected to prevent them from having meaningful input into the policy conflicts that they have been most affected by.

What did Wyoming do different and why was it so significant? Unlike Montana and Idaho, they allowed the citizens policy conflict with the wolf issue to be placed on the agenda. Consequently, their plan was a reflection of the will of their citizens. Wyoming is practicing democracy. God forbid. This is how government is supposed to operate. This is not what the USFWS wanted, so they scrapped the delisting of the wolf. The response from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service was deplorable. They, in effect, are trying to bully Wyoming into falling in line. The only way Wyoming can do that is to abandon the democratic process.

What does this mean in the big picture? The agencies have created a non-democratic process for public participation in public policy development. By using comments, working groups and resource advisory councils, the agencies can make broad claims that they have involved the community in the development of their policies, and therefore, they have community support for their actions. In reality, the agencies and these groups have all the power and no accountability. Citizens have no power and no recourse.

Currently, if a citizen is opposed to agency policy, the only thing he can do is organize large numbers of people to collectively pressure the decision-makers, or raise large sums of money and take them to court. The agencies have made a sham and a mockery of the democratic process. When governments behave this way, there is a name for it. It is called a dictatorship.

If the government wants to honor our democracy and involve the public in decisions that affect them, then they should at least do it right. It seems to me that if the federal government can give environmental groups millions of our tax dollars annually, and can spend billions of our tax dollars every year on these controversial trade and conservation items, they could flip the bill for democratic elections.

In order for the agencies to meet the criteria of the democratic process, they would have to create groups that reflected the socio-economic make-up of the communities that would be affected by their decisions. The people who filled these positions would have to be elected, so that they could be held accountable to their communities for their decisions. We wouldn't even have to re-invent the wheel here. The offending agencies could re-allocate some of the billions of dollars that are allocated for these controversial issues to the affected counties, and they could integrate these elections into existing ballots.

After all, county officials are best equipped to determine the criteria of their own socio-economic make-up, not agency personnel.

The democratic process is designed to make it much more difficult for bureaucrats or anti-democratic powers to manipulate and control the direction that public policy takes. It also creates accountability. Only then will the policy they develop and implement reflect the will of the people in these communities, and only then can the conflict in goals between our government and its people be addressed.

Kathy Kimpton,
183 Kimpton Upper Ln.
Toston, MT 59643